Queen's Play - Dorothy Dunnett [102]
And holding his hands, she laid one over the other to her heart. ‘Feel it beat strongly, my dear. It rings out like your tocsin for a son or a daughter of France.’
The violence of his disengagement staggered her. Strong wine and stretched muscles disregarded, Lymond strode to the window and stayed there, gripping his anger hard until he could speak.
‘ “A girl of spirit need never lack children,” as was said on another celebrated occasion. You are with child by the King of France. It will be born when?’
Straight-backed she eyed him. ‘In May.’
‘Do you imagine, after what happened tonight, that the King will install you instead of Diane?’
The red hair fell streaming over her silken robe, and her brown Stewart eyes shone. ‘I think,’ said Jenny Stewart, Lady Fleming, ‘you are forgetting who I am.’
Fat, battered and dirty, a hireling, an adventurer, a guest in her room, he showed not one shred of the mercy he had shown to a Scots Archer.
‘You are a bastard,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘Your son will be a bastard. Who is the Duchess? A cousin of the Queen. The wealthiest woman in France. The finest huntress in Europe. The patron of every high official at the Court. The ruler of Henri’s lightest action for fifteen long years. The virtual ruler of France for three years. Her boudoir is the political axis of the kingdom; the Cardinal dines daily at her table; the children of France are her creation by training, if not by bearing. Her position is known, recognized, assured, accepted in public, long accepted by the Queen, free of scandal, stable, built into the King’s daily routine. There is no woman alive, were she Guinevra herself, who could eject her now.’
She stood by the bedpost listening to him, her eyes sparkling with anger, and one blue-veined arm caressed the ebony. ‘Will you take a wager?’ said Jenny.
Levelly, Lymond answered. ‘You will be sent back to Scotland with a pension, my lady. That is your fortune. But first, nothing can now stop a scandal. And every name the bourgeoisie of France chooses to call you will attach itself, in double measure, to the Queen.’
‘Nonsense.’ For Jenny, her voice was sharp. ‘We are not touching on hay parties and inn wenches and simple fun in a close, my dear. Things are arranged a little differently at Court.’
‘Do you think,’ said Lymond softly in a voice which recalled, suddenly, many things—‘Do you think I don’t know exactly how they are arranged?’
There was a long silence, and it was Jenny’s gaze which dropped first. He said, ‘How often are the pages and the maids of honour dismissed?’
‘Once or twice a week. She couldn’t possibly come to harm.’ She paused, and said sulkily, ‘It won’t happen again, in any case. He won’t come back here.’
‘—You will go to him. By all means, if you want to. You can hardly do any more harm. Within the unguarded doors, what could be tampered with?’
She was already a good deal exasperated. ‘They were locked. And the Constable—’
‘I heard you. Every locksmith in the kingdom knows how to make false keys. Do you keep drugs here?’
‘No.’
‘Drink of any kind?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Lymond, and flinging from the window, caught her by her two shoulders. ‘Think. You want Mary to die; and you can get access secretly to her room and to the cabinet. What harm might you do?’
Jenny’s eyes flamed back at him. ‘Nothing. She’s perfectly safe; has been always. Do you think we shouldn’t hear …?’
‘No,’ said Lymond brutally. ‘I don’t. Think. What could be done with that arsenic?’
From below his fingers she dropped to sit, her hair fallen, her back straight as a rod in spite of all she had been through. She had never looked more a King’s daughter than now, when her face told its own story.
‘I suppose … there are … the sweets: the cotignac,’ she said.
Eight-year-old,